As We Read A Text In Our

As Centuries Of Dictators Have Known, An Illiterate Crowd Is The Easiest To Rule; Since The Craft Of Reading Cannot Be Untaught Once It Has Been Acquired, The Second-best Recourse Is To Limit Its Scope.

I Had A Library Of Maybe 1,000 Books In My Room In Buenos Aires. I Did Have The Sense That Everything There Was Organised In The Right Way. You'll Probably Think I Needed Serious Psychiatric Treatment, But There Were Times When I Would Not Buy A Book Because I Knew It Wouldn't Fit One Of The Categories Into Which I Had Divided The Library.

I Quickly Learned That Reading Is Cumulative And Proceeds By Geometrical Progression: Each New Reading Builds Upon Whatever The Reader Has Read Before.

I Can Understand That There Are Those Who Can Think And Imagine The World Without Words, But I Think That Once You Find The Words That Name Your Experience, Then Suddenly That Experience Becomes Grounded, And You Can Use It And You Can Try To Understand It.

I Know That Something Dies When I Give Up My Books, And That My Memory Keeps Going Back To Them With Mournful Nostalgia.